Chapter 23
The ship broke free of the golden atmosphere in a few minutes, sailing out into the blackness. Anita watched the stars break out through the last hints of atmosphere, one by one. And then Saturn appeared over the edge of the small moon, and took her breath away. She had seen it often, through the murk, but there it was only a dim glow, and now it was crystal clear, without a hint of atmosphere to smudge the edges of its swirling clouds and raging storms. The rings looked thin enough to cut her finger on, like a giant razor blade arcing out over the edge of the small brown world. Titan was dwarfed by it.
“Enjoying the view?” Hersch asked. “It’s one of my favorite views, too. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love Mars, and Jupiter’s got some cool stuff. But nothing beats the Saturn system for pure scenery. Someday I’ll take you to Europa and let you see what it’s like to get a view of those rings rising over a world of ice.”
Anita let her eyes soak in the view. She hadn’t seen any celestial bodies clearly since she had landed on Titan over a year ago. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed it. It was amazing to be on a world where humans could fly, but she wasn’t sure it was worth trading the stars for.
As Titan began to shrink behind them, she felt her muscles beginning to unclench. All the muscles in her back and shoulders that had pained her at night for so long began to release, and she almost cried with relief. She wasn’t truly safe, not yet. But now Perses would have to fight to get to her. She could breathe again.
Hersch reached over and took her hand again; she let herself take comfort in its warmth and firmness. The cabin of the ship filled with a comfortable silence as it moved through the night of space, lit by the brightness of Saturn. The cold light reflecting from the planet cast sharp shadows through the ship, but Anita felt warm for the first time in a long time.
She fell asleep and dreamed the kind of nonsense dreams that brains produce when they have a lot to work through. She found herself in one of her own wingsuits, soaring over a lake of hot tea, and knew that somehow she had to get a load of cats back to the base. When she woke, she couldn’t remember if she had managed to deliver the cats or not, but smiled at the silliness of the dream. It was a welcome break from the stress dreams that normally plagued her.
“How long until we get to Enceladus?” she asked. Hersch checked the time and the ship’s route.
“I’m guessing we’ve got another 10 hours or so. There’s a compartment back there if you need to empty the waste pouch on your suit.”
“Later. I’m ok for now. How long was I asleep?”
“Maybe an hour? Not long. You don’t seem to sleep easy, I’ve noticed.”
She shook her head, and signed “Not lately.”
“Wanna talk about it.”
Anita shook her head again. “Not something I can discuss just now.”
Hersch shrugged. “Ok. Well, I hope having you out of there will help you rest a little better.” He patted her hand, and turned his attention back to the display screens.
Enceladus grew in the display screens. It was backlit by the light from Saturn, and Anita couldn’t make out any distinct features. There was a small blur just above the horizon and she realized it was a geyser. She had seen pictures of them, but seeing one for herself was different.
Herschel noticed her attention and nodded. “They’re pretty common, but you never quite get used to them. They’re fairly well mapped by now, and all of them are very strict no-fly zones. Don’t want any of that moisture to hit a ship and fall back to the surface taking contaminants with it. A single pass too close to one of those will get you banned from Enceladus forever. So far, no one’s tested that.”
The moon grew closer, and soon Anita could see their real destination: a small station in orbit around the moon, gleaming in the reflected light. She could even see light coming through a few large windows and made a note to find those once she was inside. The view must be incredible.
“Be careful, we’re about to speed up and dock. The station is spinning to give us some gravity. It can take some getting used to.” Hersch didn’t look away from the screens as he talked. “Be prepared for some nausea. It happens.”
Anita nodded. And steeled herself for the imposition of gravity. The ship sped up and she saw the docking tunnel coming up. As the ship and station neared each other, she felt her stomach begin to turn. Hersch ran the docking process smoothly, and the ship was soon hard docked to the station. Anita was jolted as the station’s centrifugal force pressed her into her seat. “There it is,” Hersch grunted. “Always kind of a kick in the pants. But you’ll get used to it pretty soon.”
She wasn’t so sure. Her stomach lurched, and she tasted bile in the back of her throat. Don’t vomit, she told herself. If you vomit, you’ll have to either take off your helmet or hold it in. Don’t vomit.
“Welcome home, Mr. Amundsen,” the comm crackled. He grinned. “Good to be here.”
When the two climbed through the hatch, they climbed a ladder through the docking tunnel and into the airlock of the station. After the all-clear signal was given, Anita pulled off her helmet with a sense of relief. It was only safe to wear both helmet and suit in a smaller ship, since so much could go wrong so quickly, but it wasn’t comfortable. The air of the station smelled so much fresher than the air in the base had. She suddenly wondered what Hersch had first thought of her when he entered the base; how bad had it actually smelled? She decided not to think about it.
She took a step and stumbled. Her whole body felt heavy, and moving her feet took a great deal of extra effort. “Like I said,” Hersch commented, helping her balance. “Mars standard gravity. You haven’t had that in a long time, and you didn’t have the right weights to work with in the base. It’s going to take a little while to acclimate again. Take it slow.”
Hersch led her out of the airlock and into a changing room next door. “Everything on that rack should be your size, I called ahead and told them to have some stuff ready for you. They already know what I want to wear.” He grinned, and closed the door on a changing closet.
Anita eyed the clothes. She had had so little choice of clothing during her stay at the abandoned base, and had mostly worn a comfortable dress or her sleepwear. Time for something different. She pulled on a pair of dark leggings and a warm sweater that fell to her knees. It was strange to be wearing something both fitted and fashionable, but it was good. Anita ran her hands down the sweater, enjoying the softness of it. It had been a long time since she had been able to enjoy something not strictly practical. She looked into the mirror and brushed her hair until the knots were out, and stepped out, feeling like herself for the first time in months.
She heard the door of Hersch’s closet open, and turned to look. It had been easy to forget that he was a businessman with a lot of financial clout when he was dressed in a grubby surface suit, but now it was impossible. He was dressed in a suit that fitted every muscle and curve perfectly, with a soft shirt underneath to keep it from looking stiff. He had combed his hair and it stood in perfect, glossy waves. He had also shaved, leaving an even layer of stubble instead of the patchy hair that had covered his chin before.
I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t incredibly attractive, Anita thought, looking him up and down. This was a man who was at home in his own skin, and had created his own empire to rule. Someone to look out for, possibly.
He grinned when he saw her looking him over. “Like it? This is how I look most days, but I don’t mind going a little shabby in the field when I need to. I don’t have to be within arm’s reach of a comb at all times, as you may have noticed. I find it’s helpful to be able to do without the luxuries when necessary. Non-attachment and all of that.”
“I don’t think that’s what they mean by non-attachment,” Anita signed, but she smiled.
“Come on, let me show the place. You have pretty much free run of it, though there are a couple of private labs you won’t have access to. But no one will have access to your rooms, either.” He pressed a button to open the door of the changing room, and they went into the main station.
The design of the place was practical, but not without touches of elegance. The walls had been painted a muted blue, which was an improvement over the color of cold metal that she was used to. Lighting was installed in ways that made the illumination gentle and subtle without feeling dim. Walking was beginning to get easier, but she still felt so heavy. Shouldn’t be a problem to get to sleep tonight, she thought.
“Let’s stop and rest a minute. We’re both going to get tired really easily for the first few weeks here. There’s an observation chamber just in here.” They ducked through a doorway hidden by a curtain, and Anita lost her breath. There was a long low seat with a cushion just in front of them, and beyond, one of the large windows she had seen on the approach to the station. It couldn’t be glass, Anita realized, not at that size, but she could see everything clearly. The window was large enough to show the curve of the station, and for the first time, Anita could feel that her feet were pointing out to space as the station spun to produce the gravity that weighed her down.
Enceladus glowed brightly against the deep black velvet of space. Anita had only seen the carbon frost of Mars a few times in her life, and the thick ice of Enceladus was overwhelming. Kilometers thick, it covered the tiny world from pole to pole. Near the top of the ice world, a series of massive craters stood out sharply against the brilliant frozen white expanse. The craters seemed to be rolling toward her, tipping their leading edges like massive cups. The station must be in a polar orbit, she thought. The station must be between Saturn and Enceladus at the moment. I have to be here when I can see both of them at the same time.
The lights in the room dimmed, and the light of Enceladus shone even more brightly, casting everything in the room into sharp, cold relief. It looks so different from anything I’ve seen before, thought Anita, letting her eyes explore the valleys, craters, ripples where the forces of Saturn’s system had changed the ice itself. Mars and Titan are dusty and soaked in warm light. What must it be like down there on the surface, being able to scoop up handfuls of ice crystals, having no color visible over the whole planet? And then, where the explorers are, in massive sites under the ice, bolted to the ice by their roofs, in the constant darkness of the ocean that enclosed the whole world? Again she was struck by the strangeness of the universe, even in this tiny corner of it.
Enceladus rotated slowly in front of her, and the night edge of the world came into view. “How long is a day here?” she signed.
“A little more than a day on Mars, by seven or eight standard hours. But we circle it about every thirty minutes, so you’ll see a lot of sunrises and sunsets. Right now, we’re kind of perpendicular to Saturn, so you won’t really see much of it in here, but give it a few orbits, and this will blow your mind.” Hersch seemed relaxed, pressed comfortably into the seat. Anita felt like she was going to break through the bench and into the floor. She tried not to let her discomfort show.
As the craters at the top of Enceladus took center stage, Hersch put his hands on his knees and levered himself up. “We’ve still got a lot of stuff to see. Ready to go, or do you need to rest a little more?”
Anita thought she could have spent several weeks in front of that window, but forced herself to her feet, wincing at the sudden weight on her spine. “I’m ready.”
As they walked down the corridor, Hersch kept up a steady patter about the features of the station, but Anita found it hard to keep her mind on anything he was saying. How am I going to work on my suits here? There are so many people, and it’s so heavy. I’m going to spend half the day asleep and the other half wishing I was.
“Hey, did you hear me?” Hersch waved a hand in front of her face.
“Sorry, distracted. What was that?” Anita signed.
“I said, welcome to your new lab.”
He tapped a code into a panel near a door in the wall, and the door opened with a slight whirr. They stepped into a small room filled almost to the ceiling with equipment. At a glance, Anita could tell that one of the larger ones was a mid-scale printer. Not able to print a whole suit at one go like the big one at Kerguelen, but so much faster than her tiny one.
Her vision blurred from sudden tears. This would cut the work time down to weeks, maybe even days. She stepped into the lab and ran her hands over the machine. The smooth, unfeeling metal filled her with hope. Here was something strong, something made for this purpose. She could use this. No more cobbling together suits from bits and pieces. She could make something good again.
She became aware of Hersch’s hand warm on her shoulder, and turned around. “This lab is for your use, and yours only. No one else has the entry codes but me. There is no monitoring here, either auditory or visual. And you can send messages freely from here. We send a vast amount of communication to every base in the solar system, so it won’t draw the attention it would have from that empty base. I’ll leave you alone for a little while. I’m sure you have things you want to say to your people.” He smiled, and closed the door after him.
Anita sat down in front of the computer monitor, mind racing. Who should she contact first? Jay? Or would that be too dangerous? Finally, she typed Steven’s name into the address field. She checked the address that the message would come from; it was a generic, nothing related to her name. Good. She thought for a little while. What could she say that would make sense without giving either of them away to someone that might be monitoring communications?
S--
I hope you’ve been updated regarding the current status of our project. If not, please contact your project lead for a full update as soon as possible. In brief, the location of the project has changed at short notice, and all further meetings regarding the issue have been temporarily put on hold. Please have your project lead reach out as soon as possible so that we can move forward. Thank you for your flexibility.
There. It wasn’t perfect, but it should be vague enough to keep out of any filters, though it might not hold up to a human being scanning it. But it would have to do. She tapped the “send” button, and sank back into the chair. It would be best to wait for Jay to reach out themself when they knew it was safe. Still, she would love to hear from her old friend again. The voice message felt like it had been a lifetime ago, and in some ways, it had.
Here we go with the changing again, Anita thought. The self that went into hiding is not the one who came out in the ship of a businessman, the one who is staying on his station at his invitation. The old Anita would have laughed and refused the offer immediately. But the old Anita, the one who was so happy at Kerguelen Base, had not spent months alone. She had not experienced her body changing into something almost unrecognizable out of necessity. She had not felt the fire in her skin and the terror of closeness to another human being.
A fragment of poetry came to mind, something she had read years ago that had stuck with her without quite making sense at the time. One of those things your brain files away for later without knowing why, she thought.
“Fare forward, travellers! Not escaping from the past
Into indifferent lives, or into any future;
You are not the same people who left that station
Or who will arrive at any terminus,
While the narrowing rails slide together behind you;
And on the deck of the drumming liner
Watching the furrow that widens behind you,
You shall not think 'the past is finished'
Or 'the future is before us'.
Fare forward, you who think that you are voyaging;
You are not those who saw the harbour
Receding, or those who will disembark.”
I think this is what the poet meant, she thought. There’s nothing you can do to not change, except maybe to die, which is the biggest change of all. Maybe the changes are just too small to notice most of the time. Most people don’t have to run for their lives and live alone for months at a time without being able to talk.
A thought struck her, like a bolt of ice. She hadn’t remembered how to respond to physical touch; what if she forgot how to speak? What if, when the time came to talk again, she opened her mouth and nothing came out? Calm down, she told herself, you’re being ridiculous. But the fear remained. To distract herself, she got up and moved about the lab.
Something was out of place amidst the sleek, professional equipment. It looked like a bundle of rags placed on a table beside the printer. As soon as she touched it, she knew what it was. Tears blurred her vision as she pulled back the fabric wrapping and saw the suits and suit components from the abandoned base. They were all there, waiting to be finished. Not a single one was missing.
“Enjoying the view?” Hersch asked. “It’s one of my favorite views, too. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love Mars, and Jupiter’s got some cool stuff. But nothing beats the Saturn system for pure scenery. Someday I’ll take you to Europa and let you see what it’s like to get a view of those rings rising over a world of ice.”
Anita let her eyes soak in the view. She hadn’t seen any celestial bodies clearly since she had landed on Titan over a year ago. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed it. It was amazing to be on a world where humans could fly, but she wasn’t sure it was worth trading the stars for.
As Titan began to shrink behind them, she felt her muscles beginning to unclench. All the muscles in her back and shoulders that had pained her at night for so long began to release, and she almost cried with relief. She wasn’t truly safe, not yet. But now Perses would have to fight to get to her. She could breathe again.
Hersch reached over and took her hand again; she let herself take comfort in its warmth and firmness. The cabin of the ship filled with a comfortable silence as it moved through the night of space, lit by the brightness of Saturn. The cold light reflecting from the planet cast sharp shadows through the ship, but Anita felt warm for the first time in a long time.
She fell asleep and dreamed the kind of nonsense dreams that brains produce when they have a lot to work through. She found herself in one of her own wingsuits, soaring over a lake of hot tea, and knew that somehow she had to get a load of cats back to the base. When she woke, she couldn’t remember if she had managed to deliver the cats or not, but smiled at the silliness of the dream. It was a welcome break from the stress dreams that normally plagued her.
“How long until we get to Enceladus?” she asked. Hersch checked the time and the ship’s route.
“I’m guessing we’ve got another 10 hours or so. There’s a compartment back there if you need to empty the waste pouch on your suit.”
“Later. I’m ok for now. How long was I asleep?”
“Maybe an hour? Not long. You don’t seem to sleep easy, I’ve noticed.”
She shook her head, and signed “Not lately.”
“Wanna talk about it.”
Anita shook her head again. “Not something I can discuss just now.”
Hersch shrugged. “Ok. Well, I hope having you out of there will help you rest a little better.” He patted her hand, and turned his attention back to the display screens.
Enceladus grew in the display screens. It was backlit by the light from Saturn, and Anita couldn’t make out any distinct features. There was a small blur just above the horizon and she realized it was a geyser. She had seen pictures of them, but seeing one for herself was different.
Herschel noticed her attention and nodded. “They’re pretty common, but you never quite get used to them. They’re fairly well mapped by now, and all of them are very strict no-fly zones. Don’t want any of that moisture to hit a ship and fall back to the surface taking contaminants with it. A single pass too close to one of those will get you banned from Enceladus forever. So far, no one’s tested that.”
The moon grew closer, and soon Anita could see their real destination: a small station in orbit around the moon, gleaming in the reflected light. She could even see light coming through a few large windows and made a note to find those once she was inside. The view must be incredible.
“Be careful, we’re about to speed up and dock. The station is spinning to give us some gravity. It can take some getting used to.” Hersch didn’t look away from the screens as he talked. “Be prepared for some nausea. It happens.”
Anita nodded. And steeled herself for the imposition of gravity. The ship sped up and she saw the docking tunnel coming up. As the ship and station neared each other, she felt her stomach begin to turn. Hersch ran the docking process smoothly, and the ship was soon hard docked to the station. Anita was jolted as the station’s centrifugal force pressed her into her seat. “There it is,” Hersch grunted. “Always kind of a kick in the pants. But you’ll get used to it pretty soon.”
She wasn’t so sure. Her stomach lurched, and she tasted bile in the back of her throat. Don’t vomit, she told herself. If you vomit, you’ll have to either take off your helmet or hold it in. Don’t vomit.
“Welcome home, Mr. Amundsen,” the comm crackled. He grinned. “Good to be here.”
When the two climbed through the hatch, they climbed a ladder through the docking tunnel and into the airlock of the station. After the all-clear signal was given, Anita pulled off her helmet with a sense of relief. It was only safe to wear both helmet and suit in a smaller ship, since so much could go wrong so quickly, but it wasn’t comfortable. The air of the station smelled so much fresher than the air in the base had. She suddenly wondered what Hersch had first thought of her when he entered the base; how bad had it actually smelled? She decided not to think about it.
She took a step and stumbled. Her whole body felt heavy, and moving her feet took a great deal of extra effort. “Like I said,” Hersch commented, helping her balance. “Mars standard gravity. You haven’t had that in a long time, and you didn’t have the right weights to work with in the base. It’s going to take a little while to acclimate again. Take it slow.”
Hersch led her out of the airlock and into a changing room next door. “Everything on that rack should be your size, I called ahead and told them to have some stuff ready for you. They already know what I want to wear.” He grinned, and closed the door on a changing closet.
Anita eyed the clothes. She had had so little choice of clothing during her stay at the abandoned base, and had mostly worn a comfortable dress or her sleepwear. Time for something different. She pulled on a pair of dark leggings and a warm sweater that fell to her knees. It was strange to be wearing something both fitted and fashionable, but it was good. Anita ran her hands down the sweater, enjoying the softness of it. It had been a long time since she had been able to enjoy something not strictly practical. She looked into the mirror and brushed her hair until the knots were out, and stepped out, feeling like herself for the first time in months.
She heard the door of Hersch’s closet open, and turned to look. It had been easy to forget that he was a businessman with a lot of financial clout when he was dressed in a grubby surface suit, but now it was impossible. He was dressed in a suit that fitted every muscle and curve perfectly, with a soft shirt underneath to keep it from looking stiff. He had combed his hair and it stood in perfect, glossy waves. He had also shaved, leaving an even layer of stubble instead of the patchy hair that had covered his chin before.
I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t incredibly attractive, Anita thought, looking him up and down. This was a man who was at home in his own skin, and had created his own empire to rule. Someone to look out for, possibly.
He grinned when he saw her looking him over. “Like it? This is how I look most days, but I don’t mind going a little shabby in the field when I need to. I don’t have to be within arm’s reach of a comb at all times, as you may have noticed. I find it’s helpful to be able to do without the luxuries when necessary. Non-attachment and all of that.”
“I don’t think that’s what they mean by non-attachment,” Anita signed, but she smiled.
“Come on, let me show the place. You have pretty much free run of it, though there are a couple of private labs you won’t have access to. But no one will have access to your rooms, either.” He pressed a button to open the door of the changing room, and they went into the main station.
The design of the place was practical, but not without touches of elegance. The walls had been painted a muted blue, which was an improvement over the color of cold metal that she was used to. Lighting was installed in ways that made the illumination gentle and subtle without feeling dim. Walking was beginning to get easier, but she still felt so heavy. Shouldn’t be a problem to get to sleep tonight, she thought.
“Let’s stop and rest a minute. We’re both going to get tired really easily for the first few weeks here. There’s an observation chamber just in here.” They ducked through a doorway hidden by a curtain, and Anita lost her breath. There was a long low seat with a cushion just in front of them, and beyond, one of the large windows she had seen on the approach to the station. It couldn’t be glass, Anita realized, not at that size, but she could see everything clearly. The window was large enough to show the curve of the station, and for the first time, Anita could feel that her feet were pointing out to space as the station spun to produce the gravity that weighed her down.
Enceladus glowed brightly against the deep black velvet of space. Anita had only seen the carbon frost of Mars a few times in her life, and the thick ice of Enceladus was overwhelming. Kilometers thick, it covered the tiny world from pole to pole. Near the top of the ice world, a series of massive craters stood out sharply against the brilliant frozen white expanse. The craters seemed to be rolling toward her, tipping their leading edges like massive cups. The station must be in a polar orbit, she thought. The station must be between Saturn and Enceladus at the moment. I have to be here when I can see both of them at the same time.
The lights in the room dimmed, and the light of Enceladus shone even more brightly, casting everything in the room into sharp, cold relief. It looks so different from anything I’ve seen before, thought Anita, letting her eyes explore the valleys, craters, ripples where the forces of Saturn’s system had changed the ice itself. Mars and Titan are dusty and soaked in warm light. What must it be like down there on the surface, being able to scoop up handfuls of ice crystals, having no color visible over the whole planet? And then, where the explorers are, in massive sites under the ice, bolted to the ice by their roofs, in the constant darkness of the ocean that enclosed the whole world? Again she was struck by the strangeness of the universe, even in this tiny corner of it.
Enceladus rotated slowly in front of her, and the night edge of the world came into view. “How long is a day here?” she signed.
“A little more than a day on Mars, by seven or eight standard hours. But we circle it about every thirty minutes, so you’ll see a lot of sunrises and sunsets. Right now, we’re kind of perpendicular to Saturn, so you won’t really see much of it in here, but give it a few orbits, and this will blow your mind.” Hersch seemed relaxed, pressed comfortably into the seat. Anita felt like she was going to break through the bench and into the floor. She tried not to let her discomfort show.
As the craters at the top of Enceladus took center stage, Hersch put his hands on his knees and levered himself up. “We’ve still got a lot of stuff to see. Ready to go, or do you need to rest a little more?”
Anita thought she could have spent several weeks in front of that window, but forced herself to her feet, wincing at the sudden weight on her spine. “I’m ready.”
As they walked down the corridor, Hersch kept up a steady patter about the features of the station, but Anita found it hard to keep her mind on anything he was saying. How am I going to work on my suits here? There are so many people, and it’s so heavy. I’m going to spend half the day asleep and the other half wishing I was.
“Hey, did you hear me?” Hersch waved a hand in front of her face.
“Sorry, distracted. What was that?” Anita signed.
“I said, welcome to your new lab.”
He tapped a code into a panel near a door in the wall, and the door opened with a slight whirr. They stepped into a small room filled almost to the ceiling with equipment. At a glance, Anita could tell that one of the larger ones was a mid-scale printer. Not able to print a whole suit at one go like the big one at Kerguelen, but so much faster than her tiny one.
Her vision blurred from sudden tears. This would cut the work time down to weeks, maybe even days. She stepped into the lab and ran her hands over the machine. The smooth, unfeeling metal filled her with hope. Here was something strong, something made for this purpose. She could use this. No more cobbling together suits from bits and pieces. She could make something good again.
She became aware of Hersch’s hand warm on her shoulder, and turned around. “This lab is for your use, and yours only. No one else has the entry codes but me. There is no monitoring here, either auditory or visual. And you can send messages freely from here. We send a vast amount of communication to every base in the solar system, so it won’t draw the attention it would have from that empty base. I’ll leave you alone for a little while. I’m sure you have things you want to say to your people.” He smiled, and closed the door after him.
Anita sat down in front of the computer monitor, mind racing. Who should she contact first? Jay? Or would that be too dangerous? Finally, she typed Steven’s name into the address field. She checked the address that the message would come from; it was a generic, nothing related to her name. Good. She thought for a little while. What could she say that would make sense without giving either of them away to someone that might be monitoring communications?
S--
I hope you’ve been updated regarding the current status of our project. If not, please contact your project lead for a full update as soon as possible. In brief, the location of the project has changed at short notice, and all further meetings regarding the issue have been temporarily put on hold. Please have your project lead reach out as soon as possible so that we can move forward. Thank you for your flexibility.
There. It wasn’t perfect, but it should be vague enough to keep out of any filters, though it might not hold up to a human being scanning it. But it would have to do. She tapped the “send” button, and sank back into the chair. It would be best to wait for Jay to reach out themself when they knew it was safe. Still, she would love to hear from her old friend again. The voice message felt like it had been a lifetime ago, and in some ways, it had.
Here we go with the changing again, Anita thought. The self that went into hiding is not the one who came out in the ship of a businessman, the one who is staying on his station at his invitation. The old Anita would have laughed and refused the offer immediately. But the old Anita, the one who was so happy at Kerguelen Base, had not spent months alone. She had not experienced her body changing into something almost unrecognizable out of necessity. She had not felt the fire in her skin and the terror of closeness to another human being.
A fragment of poetry came to mind, something she had read years ago that had stuck with her without quite making sense at the time. One of those things your brain files away for later without knowing why, she thought.
“Fare forward, travellers! Not escaping from the past
Into indifferent lives, or into any future;
You are not the same people who left that station
Or who will arrive at any terminus,
While the narrowing rails slide together behind you;
And on the deck of the drumming liner
Watching the furrow that widens behind you,
You shall not think 'the past is finished'
Or 'the future is before us'.
Fare forward, you who think that you are voyaging;
You are not those who saw the harbour
Receding, or those who will disembark.”
I think this is what the poet meant, she thought. There’s nothing you can do to not change, except maybe to die, which is the biggest change of all. Maybe the changes are just too small to notice most of the time. Most people don’t have to run for their lives and live alone for months at a time without being able to talk.
A thought struck her, like a bolt of ice. She hadn’t remembered how to respond to physical touch; what if she forgot how to speak? What if, when the time came to talk again, she opened her mouth and nothing came out? Calm down, she told herself, you’re being ridiculous. But the fear remained. To distract herself, she got up and moved about the lab.
Something was out of place amidst the sleek, professional equipment. It looked like a bundle of rags placed on a table beside the printer. As soon as she touched it, she knew what it was. Tears blurred her vision as she pulled back the fabric wrapping and saw the suits and suit components from the abandoned base. They were all there, waiting to be finished. Not a single one was missing.
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